Dodgers 8, Marlins 2: Yoshinobu Yamamoto cruises through 8 strong, backed by Max Muncy grand salami

Chad Moriyama 05/07/2024 Game Recaps Leave A Comment

Man, this series looked like a mismatch on paper, but sometimes baseball can baseball. Well, that has not happened so far, as the Dodgers bludgeoned the Marlins early and almost seemed to use the back-end of the game as practice in an 8-2 victory.

That’s now six in a row and 13 of their last 15, and they’ve secured the series with the Marlins as well.

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After not giving up a run in his last two starts, Yoshinobu Yamamoto started today’s game by grooving a fastball right down the middle to Jazz Chisholm Jr., who promptly deposited that pitch into the right-field bleachers for an early 1-0 Marlins lead. Thankfully, that wasn’t a trend.

Also thankfully, that wasn’t the only early swing that was doing damage tonight. Marlins starter Edward Cabrera has struggled with his control, which makes this team a nightmare matchup for him. Sure enough, Shohei Ohtani drew a walk, Freddie Freeman got hit on a 3-2 pitch, and Will Smith walked to load the bases. That set things up for the red hot Max Muncy, who drilled a pitch the other way for his ninth homer of the year, a grand slam to make it 4-1.

After Cabrera also issued two walks in the 2nd, despite getting out of the inning, he was done for the night due to throwing 58 pitches.

The pen didn’t provide a whole lot of relief, though. Smith started the 3rd by getting hit, Muncy dumped a broken-bat double into right on a 3-0 count, and Teoscar Hernandez drew a walk on a full count to load things up. Andy Pages stepped up and manufactured a run with a sac fly, then Christian Bethancourt made an ill-advised pick-off attempt of Muncy at third, which plated another run and moved Teoscar to third. Moments later, Gavin Lux started to get going, yanking his first homer of the year to right and making it 8-0.

Rather amusingly, the Dodgers kinda started to put in their subs starting in the 4th, and probably uncoincidentally they got just a couple singles the rest of the game.

Not that it mattered, as while all this was going on Yamamoto was in cruise control.

After the initial damage, to say Yamamoto settled in would be putting it mildly. He was basically a strike-throwing machine, and against the aggressive Marlins that resulted in a lot of early outs. The rest of the game, he gave up just a couple singles, a double, and a Bryan De La Cruz solo homer in the 6th that made it 8-2. None of them came in the same inning.

Honestly, could argue he threw too many strikes and that was the reason for the two homers, but Yamamoto continued to be effective and gave the pen more rest: 8 IP, 5 H, 2 R, 0 BB, 5 K, 97 Pitches.

The 9th belonged to J.P. Feyereisen, who looked to continue getting back into any kind of form, and he gave up just a two-out single and notched a strikeout to close the game out. Getting … something from him.

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I dunno if this is a result of the Rojas/Chisholm beef or what, but lol.

Anyway, Rojas and Gavin are unbothered.

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Fans doing the celly is just gonna be a lot of fun.

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25-13, a 107-win pace. No other team in the NL West is above .500 in case you’re wondering why I’m not bothering with standings updates.

The series will conclude tomorrow in a day game as the Dodgers go for a sweep at 9:10 AM HT/12:10 PM PT/3:10 PM ET with Gavin Stone squaring off against Ryan Weathers.

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